A " SHARE-AND-SHARE-ALIKE ” HOUSEHOLD.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXX, Issue 3434, 27 January 1912, Page 4

A " SHARE-AND-SHARE-ALIKE ” HOUSEHOLD.

(BY A HAPPY WIFE.)

In some few families there, is a certain amount of .friction between husband and wife on the question of whoso work, his or hers, is the more arduous.

I have heard a husband remark as be sat down to his evening meal: “By Jove, I’ve had a hard day of it,” only to be greeted with a*. “What about me? Of course, I have bad nothing to do,” from liis wife.. Just as if he had really intended to convey that he was the only busy person in the world. But wives, as a rule, do not adopt this attitude. Nor does the average husband assume that liis “Missis’ spends her days in luxurious ease because she is bright and cheery, and ready to talk to him when he comes home from business.

When I married Percy we recognised that the future was not going to bo aprolonged trip through! fa fry groves for either of us, but we determined to make it as agreeable as possible for one another. I know that Percy’s work makes huge d-’aily demands upon his strength and temper. He goes off each morning to his office fresh and clean, a rosebud m his button-hole and a good-bye smile on liis lips. He conies back utterly “done,” lie and his buttonhole equally dejected. • The “chief” has been very trying, the office-boy “impossible.’ He has made a bad inv-estmeni> or a bad debt. Sometimes, of course, everything has gone right, but even so the strain of long hours in tho city has told upon him. „ . . . A married man puts up with all kinds of things that an inconsequent bachelor would not stand. Paterfamilias has responsibilities at home which forces him to swallow all manner of disagreeable things from those hi authority. He cannot afford to lose his berth, so must needs grin and boar wliatevor conics along. * -34- * *

The wife doesn’t have it all her own way either. She has her share of difficulties. and it is only fair that she should.' I have my daily battle with incompetent domestics. I have the children, who, sick or well, like my hourl-v attention. I cannot say, like my little maid: “It’s not my place bo do so-and-so.” I must do everything and anything. There is a constant struggle to make ends meet, and the perpetual endeavor to contrive that sixpence goes as fan as a shilling. . ~ - , T have physical disabilities added to the others. But Ido not rub these facts into my husband any more than he bemoans nis burdens to me. “She has her own particular difficulties. Money-making isn’t everything, hubby tells himself. “He has quite enough on his own hands,” I tell myself. . Anci so each tries to be cheerful foi the sake of the other. This is as it should be; and it is a far braver and worthier attitude than for me to be seeking to prove myself a modern edition of an early Christian martyr, and for Percy to be continually wondering why it has been ordained that, women 'i-buld have such an awfully easy time of it.